Taking Up Positions

We lay in Le Harve harbor for several days before getting the signal to move on into the Seine River. We were all amazed at the wreckage we saw along the way. We stood topside in order not to miss a thing. A gravity began to settle over us. The realization that we were about there began to penetrate our thinking. We disembarked at Rouen and moved across France. We spent but a few days in the rain and mud of France before moving into Belgium to relieve the Second Division. For several days we studied the positions we were to take over. Chaplain Taylor and I went with the Second Division Artillery chaplains so we would know where they had been having services. It was during this period that we really came to know we had an enemy. All during one service, we felt the impact of enemy shells dropping nearby. It was thrilling in a way; however, the thrills were the type that you would rather do without.

The Second Division soon pulled out to other positions and left us on our own. Our battalions were in Germany while our headquarters were in St. Vith, Belgium. Along with a number of the staff members, we were quartered in an old hotel in St. Vith. Chaplain Taylor and I had a room to ourselves. Our assistants bunked with the battery about a block away. Our mess was conveniently located next door to the battery. The chow was good and our rooms were usually warm so we were comfortable in spite of the snow and cold.

The people of St. Vith had at one time been part of the German state and then later a part of Belgium and at the moment they seemed to be friendly. After the break- through it was proved that much of the friendliness was not genuine. However, it can be said of the Belgian people as a whole that they were nicer to our men than to any other group. They did not wave at you with the one hand and hold the other out for gifts, but rather they wanted to be the givers. The people around St. Vith were not pure Belgians and were not to be fully trusted, as we later learned.